PUBLIC LIVES

PUBLIC LIVES; Still a Cadet, but Already Proven in the Field

By JANE GROSS

Published: April 2, 1999

ALISON JONES is two months away from graduating from the United States Military Academy, itching to go to Kosovo and battle-tested in a way that few cadets are when they leave the crenelated walls of West Point.

Ms. Jones proved her courage and leadership last August during the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. There, on her last day as a summer intern, the 21-year-old cadet was part of the search and rescue mission, combing the ruined building for signs of life. For her bravery, she was awarded the Soldiers' Medal, the armed forces' highest peacetime award.

Her reactions that day in Nairobi were swift and sure, as a soldier's should be. And that puts Ms. Jones ''a step ahead of the game,'' her superiors have told her, as she embarks on a career as a second lieutenant in the military police, a branch of the Army that women clamor to join if they are eager to see combat.

Between the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, combat patches disappeared from military uniforms of all but the most senior officers at West Point. But the 4,121 cadets in the current corps are surrounded by men and women in their 30's who have led platoons in battle. Among them are Capt. Gillian Boice, a tactical officer and Ms. Jones's diving coach, and Maj. Kimberly Field, a professor of international relations who supervised the younger woman's East African internship.

Both Captain Boice (West Point '89) and Major Field (class of '87) led M.P. platoons in the Persian Gulf and both won Bronze Stars -- Captain Boice for leading a charge on an Iraqi bunker and taking 90 prisoners, and Major Field for escorting fuel and ammunition to the tanks of the First Cavalry Division.

Ms. Jones's two mentors, who between them have seven small children, sold her on choosing the military police on Branch Night, when ''firsties,'' as graduating seniors are called, select their future assignments. Of the 25 M.P. slots open to the class of 1999, 12 have been claimed by women, who represent about 15 percent of the corps, which went coed 23 years ago.

Captain Boice and Major Field are not the first West Point graduates to influence her future. The decision to come to the academy, Ms. Jones said, was a tribute to her high school physics teacher, Beth Carpenter (class of '87). ''She pretty much led me here, through who she was, not what she said,'' Ms. Jones explained.

FOR a gung-ho soldier like Ms. Jones, a 21-year-old Baltimore native, the appeal of the military police is obvious. Two branches of the Army, armor and infantry, remain closed to women, and the other combat branches restrict the jobs women are allowed to do. But the M.P. branch has no such restrictions, is deployed worldwide and has the weaponry to back up infantry and armored units at the front.

''M.P.'s are everywhere,'' Ms. Jones said. ''They're the first on the ground and the last to leave. You can choose things in the Army where you sit at a desk and sit on your hands. But most of us want to use the skills we were trained for.''

Captain Boice, 31, who left behind a 4-month-old son for her six months in the Persian Gulf, calls her protegee a cadet of unusual promise: mature, adventurous, athletic, disciplined and compassionate. All of those qualities were on display on the day of the bombing, which killed 200 and wounded 5,000 more.

Ms. Jones was not supposed to be in Kenya that summer. Her first choice for an internship was in Burundi, with the International Medical Corps. But the American Ambassador told West Point that conditions in the country were deteriorating, so she was assigned to Nairobi, doing a project on AIDS for the State Department.

On the morning of the bombing, Ms. Jones was finishing the proofreading of her report and saying her goodbyes. She left the embassy for a half-hour, to arrange for the shipping of a carved wooden chest at a store two blocks away. She was there, with a civilian friend, when the blast shattered windows, blackened the sky and sent terrified Kenyans fleeing along Moi Avenue.

Ms. Jones, blond hair flying behind her, took off running, oblivious to the shouts of her friend to wait up. At the embassy, she joined the first search and rescue team, following cries for help until they found one man who was still alive. It was Ms. Jones, a triathlete, diver and lacrosse player, who turned a ceiling beam into a splint to set his shattered leg. Only later did she notice that her feet, in Masai beaded sandals, were bleeding.

Everyone else they found in the building was dead, including a close friend, a sergeant from Mississippi, who was chest deep in rubble. For a ''split second,'' Ms. Jones said, she felt a wave of great sadness. Then she switched back into ''mission mode,'' surveyed the scene and asked herself, ''What's next?''

In the early hours after disasters -- bombings, earthquakes and the like -- nobody seems in control, and tasks get done by whoever is enterprising and skilled enough to do them. So Ms. Jones set out to secure the front of the building, keeping curiosity seekers away and organizing a central delivery point for donated medical supplies.

When she gave orders to Kenyan police officers or Marine guards assigned to the embassy, they obeyed. ''I'm a firm believer that uniform and rank do not make you a commander,'' she said. ''You have to have people making decisions. Because of our training here, I'd say that any other cadet in my situation would have done the same thing. It was the right response. And it's our profession.''

Photo: Alison Jones received a medal for her actions after the embassy blast in Nairobi, Kenya. (Chris Ramirez for The New York Times)